


String Theory

by Beguile



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gen, Metafiction, Parallel Universes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2015-01-24
Packaged: 2018-01-17 13:04:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1388677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beguile/pseuds/Beguile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If space is infinite then there’s tons of yous out there and tons of mes.”</p>
<p>“I like that thought.  Somewhere out there, I’m having a good time.”  (<i>Rabbit Hole</i>)</p>
<p>Two different Molly Fosters.  Two different Will Grahams.  Just two out of innumerable possibilities.  AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Thomas Harris, Bryan Fuller, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only. 
> 
> In the movie Red Dragon, Molly and Will are married prior to Hannibal’s arrest; in the novel and series, they don’t meet until after the good doctor is behind bars. I’m being haunted by both incarnations of the character – the Molly before and the Molly after. This is a fic I’ve been playing with for a while. It started with the alt version of Molly in _5 Reasons_ and _Holding Back the Night_. I’ve since expanded to include a more canonical version of the character. One part will therefore follow the series; the other will speculate on the third season (when Fuller says Molly will be introduced).
> 
> This is about to get experimental.

String Theory

 

-Great Falls, Virginia-

 

The first time they met, Will Graham didn’t look at her once.

          He also brought a urine sample – unsolicited but, given the subject of the appointment, appreciated nonetheless – from the dog in question, mopped up from the living room floor that morning.  It was then that Molly Foster learned the only thing weirder than not being looked at was not being looked at while being handed a recycled margarine container full of fresh dog urine. 

          And the only thing weirder than that was the silence that followed.  Will was totally fixated on his dog, his dog was totally fixated on him, and the only indication either were paying any attention was the way they anticipated her.  They saw her coming a mile away, even when neither was looking in her general direction. 

          She called him the next day with the results of the test: urinary tract infection.  Will would have to come by and pick up antibiotics.  Molly was heading out on a call when he arrived, so she intercepted him at the door to the veterinary office. 

          He backed away first, almost three feet from her, and his eyes stayed glued to the ground in the opposite direction.  Molly might as well have drenched him in gasoline.  “Sorry,” she said, though she had no idea what for, and then backed out of the doorway to clear a path. 

          Will kept his head down the entire time.

 

          Two weeks later, Will was back in the office, this time with a honey-coloured collie-cross on the examination table.  He was caught somewhere between livid and nauseated, white-knuckled but face twisted in physical pain.  He held a reassuring hand on the whimpering dog’s back, “Someone just ran her over and then left her on the side of the highway.”

          “She’s going lose the leg,” Molly noted sadly.  That much was obvious.  The mangled limb twitched and kicked on the table in time with every miserable whine.  Pulling on her gloves, Molly set to work.  “I’ll get her something for the pain.  You don’t...” his eyes were lost in the dog again, and Molly almost didn’t see the need in finishing her sentence.  He clearly wasn’t listening.  Except that his posture tilted a second later and he was.  “You don’t need to stay, you know.”

          “I know.”

          There wasn’t a shred of competition in his voice.  Will had the rare ability to voice certainty without sounding like he was on a power trip, and Molly wasn’t sure if that scared or impressed her just yet.  “I’m a little surprised you want to,” she started gathering supplies, “Most people just drop strays off here like they’re playing Knock-Knock-Ginger.”

          “I’m not like most people.”

          Molly shook her head, “No, you’re not.”  She couldn’t think of a single person Will Graham was really like. 

          The atmosphere in the room shifted, as if Will had only just realized how aberrant his behaviour really was.  He lifted his gaze from the dog and swatted his gaze back and forth over the tiles – searching, imploring.  Like an actor who just broke character and was trying to find their way back into a scene.  Molly shuffled back and out of the room before giving any indication that she noticed.  The dog was suffering; Will could wait. 

          When she returned, Molly found that he had shifted back into his uncomfortable self.  Almost.  Will’s movements were smoother, less urgent.  He stroked the dog as Molly administered the injection.  She was even able to hover within inches of him before he pulled away, and this time, Will did so without a look of displeasure. 

          “Can we start over?” he asked.

          Molly looked up from the dog’s leg in surprise.  Will’s head was raised.  His eyes were glued to the tile, but they flicked towards her every once in a while to every place that wasn’t her eyes: her shoulder, her neck, her hands, her hair.  Oddly enough, she didn’t feel the least bit catalogued.  Something about Will’s mannerisms – his subdued expression, the slight furrow in his brow – told her she had already been understood as a whole.  He simply struggled to find a part of her that didn’t lead to a larger, more expansive story. 

          “I don’t think we ever really started,” she remarked pointedly, staring into the blank expanse of his face.  Will seemed to grow calmer with every passing moment.  It was then Molly’s turn to feel insecure.  She had never made an introduction two weeks after meeting someone for the first time.  “I’m…I’m Dr. Foster.  Molly Foster.”

          “Will Graham,” his eyes sprang up at the last second to meet hers before falling back towards the ground.

          Social convention steered the rest of their conversation.  “Nice to finally meet you, Mr. Graham,” Molly said. 

          He nodded shakily, still not meeting her eyes. “Nice to finally meet you, Dr. Foster.”

 

* * *

 

-Marathon, Florida-

 

The first time they met, Will Graham didn’t look at her once.

          Molly had followed a brood of dogs from the beach into the boatyard, catching up with them in a maze of old motors and battered hulls.  “Hey,” she knelt down amongst them, searching for collars or tags.  They looked well fed and groomed, but that didn’t mean anything close to the water.  Dogs like these were cared for by tourists: fed from their picnic baskets and bathed from play in the ocean.  She wasn’t about to leave without making sure they were okay. 

          They licked her cheeks, her collarbone, her neck; they nuzzled her hands, arms, and shoulders.  Molly was very quickly overrun.  “Oh, hello,” she ruffled the neck on a beautiful mottled retriever.  “Who’s your person, huh?  Where’s home?”

          As if in response, the retriever trotted several paces down the way, turning around only when Molly hadn’t started to follow.  She rose to her feet and shuffled along through the sand, navigating her way through the remaining dogs towards the retriever. 

          Beyond the corpses of boats lay a ramshackle trailer.  A chill crept down Molly’s spine, and a tremor ran through her arms.  The place looked vacant, neglected.  Ghostly.  She got the faintest impression someone had died there, that the dogs were leading her to a body. 

          The retriever looked back at her from the stoop, still inviting her, but Molly couldn’t go any further.  Her legs wouldn’t move. 

          A whistle and click drew the retriever’s attention.  Molly watched as a man walked into view: slight build, brown curls, t-shirt soaked with ocean and perspiration.  The owner?  She hoped so; the feeling of walking over a grave was growing stronger. 

          He held a hand out to the retriever as he strode past.  Molly knelt back down to be with the rest of the dogs.  She felt stupid for asking, but a group this big couldn’t belong to just one person.  Other people weren’t suckers for strays like her.  “Hey,” she said pleasantly, smiling as the dogs kissed her, “are all of them yours?”

          No answer.  Molly scrubbed at the scruff of the Jack Russell’s neck.  Maybe he hadn’t heard her.  “Pretty sizeable collection.  Seven strays?”

          Still nothing.  The man didn’t even turn around.  His posture gave no indication she was even being acknowledged.  Molly stroked the fluffy border collie to curb her frustration.  She didn’t like being ignored.  “Most people don’t even want one.”  
          The man sighed.  He still hadn’t turned at all, focused as he was on the retriever.  “I’m not…I’m not like most people.”

          Molly smiled, feeling the chill dispel at long last from her bones.  She rose from the dogs, brushing the sand from her skirt, “They don’t look like Florida dogs.”

          “They’re not,” he finally turned to reveal his profile.  Molly tried to see more, but he appeared to intentionally keep his body hidden from view.  “Who uh…who are you?”

          “I’m Molly,” she petted another of his mutts.  “Molly Foster.  I own a shop in town.”

          Satisfied, he looked back towards his trailer door and started away.

          “Who are you?” she called after him.

          He stopped.  Molly was surprised.  She had expected him to keep walking.  Instead, she got another glimpse of his profile, enough to see him flash a small, fragile smile.  The gesture was forced and sad.  Molly felt her heart break.  Her mind flittered between two extremes, between relief that there was the man was alive and the terrifying notion that she should have walked away when she had the chance.

          “Will,” the man said half-heartedly.  “My name’s Will.”

          “Nice to meet you, Will,” she said. 

          He nodded.  “Nice to meet you too.”

 

* * *

 

Happy reading!


	2. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If space is infinite then there’s tons of yous out there and tons of mes.”
> 
> “I like that thought. Somewhere out there, I’m having a good time.” (Rabbit Hole)
> 
> Two different Molly Fosters. Two different Will Grahams. Just two out of innumerable possibilities. AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Thomas Harris, Bryan Fuller, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only. 
> 
> This story has given me a lot of pause. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to handle writing two separate universes without being boring and repetitive. That’s when I decided to just make this a straight-up world collision. Enjoy!

* * *

 

Marathon, Florida

 

The collie was new.  She appeared in a flash of sunset, or so it appeared to Will, though she must have simply been hiding amidst his other dogs on their great race down the beach.

          Her coat blazed copper in the setting sun.  There was no collar about her neck, but Will knew she wasn’t a stray.  Her right foreleg was gone and neatly replaced with a bald patch of skin that, while still knitting, did nothing to stop her fun.  Few veterinarians would have performed an amputation on a stray.  Euthanasia was cheaper and required less effort. 

          Will checked the beach for her owner.  No candidates presented themselves.  A small handful of people dotted the shore, but they were too preoccupied with the sunset or each other to be concerned with the dogs.  There was no one lurking in the small cluster of palm trees nearby either.  Somehow, the collie had found her way into his pack of mutts without a single instance of in-fighting and Will noticing. 

          Her strangeness registered as being inconsequential, and Will welcomed that.  He welcomed the sedate banality of life in Florida, the comfort of fixing boat motors, the company of dogs, the interminable length of hours.  He felt clear and untethered.  Free floating like a boat in a placid cove.  Better still, the feeling was accessible at any time.  He walked twenty paces from his trailer and ended up outside himself.

          Just what he needed when Hannibal Lecter decided to send a letter.

          Will wouldn’t have opened it, not for anything, had he known the sender.  Incarceration gave the doctor distance though, so Will had torn into the envelope and found himself staring at the carefully penned script written in the doctor’s fine hand.  The sky drowned out most of what the doctor had written from his memory, but some words still remained.  Something about scars, something about friendship, something about whether or not he was dreaming: Will could hear Lecter’s voice purring in his head again.  Only the water had given him any kind of relief.

          Barely a year had passed since their last encounter.  Will’s wound still throbbed with phantom pains.  He would wake up with the linoleum knife still carving its way through his midriff.  His intestines spilling on the floor.  The air thick with the scent of his own bowels.  Outside, he could diffuse.  He followed the dogs on their long treks in the surf; he stood with the waves lapping at his ankles and let himself be carried far out to sea, to the places where the water and sky were the exact same place.  Inside – the trailer, himself, same difference really – he was still screaming most of the time.

          He cast a glance over his shoulder to the trailer behind him.  The door was swinging open on its hinges.  Will hadn’t even bothered to close it after opening the letter.  He could still see the rich, white paper lying on the floor.  Dr. Lecter’s silhouette passed over the back wall.  Will turned away and stared back at the dogs.  They made one last loop of the beach, the collie trailing behind now, and then headed straight for him.

          Beneath the salt, surf, and sand, Will swore he caught the scents of antiseptic and pine.  Just how fresh was the collie’s amputation?  He ministered to his dogs first, and then reached towards the newcomer.  She nuzzled her face against his palm immediately.  No need for her to smell Will: she already knew him.

          “Hi.”

          Will looked up in surprise.  Human voices so rarely disturbed him here, especially those from outside his head. 

          She was wearing yellow.  He never forgot that, or the way she so effortlessly ingratiated herself in the company of his dogs. 

          Will was glued to his spot and not just because of the letter waiting for him in the trailer.  The last time he had been in someone’s company had been to say goodbye to Alana Bloom before leaving for Florida.  Their parting exchange didn’t serve as a good model for a conversation.  Will’s eyes danced along the horizon, searching for somewhere that didn’t have to do with _her_.  With the freckles on her shoulders, the slope of her collarbones, the round, wide, openness of her eyes.  He eventually ended up looking at the dogs instead.

          The collie was gone. 

          He searched the beach.  “Something wrong?” she asked.  Will swallowed hard.  There was no sign of the dog anywhere. 

          “Thought I saw something…” he muttered, scrambling for cognitive purchase.  He found none.  “I have to go.”

* * *

 

Great Fall, Virginia

 

The collie was gone.  Molly threw open the door of the kennel and slammed her hands around the metal interior, as if the dog could be hiding somewhere in a steel box.  She then made another frantic search of the corridor and the exam rooms.  The dog was nowhere to be found. 

          “Did someone come for the collie?” Molly asked the tech at the front desk.  He answered in the negative.  “Then where is she?”

          “She was in the cage a minute ago.”

          “Yeah, well she’s not there now,” Molly rushed off again. 

          The kennel was still empty when she got back there.  So was the corridor, so were the exam rooms, so were the back alley and open lots surrounding the clinic.  Molly stood in the parking lot, hands on her hips, trying and failing to wrap her head around a dog still recovering from a traumatic amputation had somehow escaped from a locked, steel hole-in-the-wall.  She was still standing there when Will Graham pulled up in the parking lot.

          “Lost something?” he asked. 

          “Yes,” she replied, “I’ve lost your dog.”

          Now it was his turn to wrap his head around the idea.  “You lost my dog,” he repeated.  Molly nodded.  “Were you taking her out for a walk?”

          “I don’t even know how she got out of the kennel.”

          “She couldn’t have gone far.”

          “No.”

          “Did anyone see her go outside?”

          “Nobody saw her outside of the kennel,” Molly sighed.  She turned back towards the clinic.  “I don’t know how she could have escaped.”  Her amputated leg notwithstanding, the collie’s kennel door was still locked when Molly found it just moments ago. 

          Will said nothing.  He scanned the street for any signs of a runaway dog.  “She couldn’t have made it far.”

          “No,” Molly sighed again, louder this time.  The dog’s disappearance didn’t make any sense!

          The door to the clinic flew open.  “Dr. Foster?” the technician asked.

          “Yes?” she couldn’t tear her eyes from the street.

          “The collie you’re looking for?  She’s locked up in the back.”

          “She’s what?” Molly charged into the building.  Will followed at a respectable distance.  The tech led them both to the kennels in the back, where sure enough, the collie was carefully shut away.  She was standing on her three remaining legs, tail wagging happily, ready to go home.

          “Unbelievable,” Molly breathed.  She watched in awe as the technician opened the door to the kennel.  The collie limped towards Will’s outstretched hands.  “She wasn’t there.  I know she wasn’t there.”

          The technician shrugged, “I don’t know what to tell you, Dr. Foster.  She’s there now.”   He walked back to the front desk. 

          “One of the assistants must have taken her,” Molly noted, to no one but herself, she realized.  Will was in his own world again, alone with the dog, and there was nothing that could compel him to return to the conversation.  The level of devotion he displayed never ceased to amaze her.  She had to take several steps away from the scene to clear her head and catch her breath.  The whole event just seemed so impossible. 

          “Her feet are wet.”

          “What?” Molly hadn’t understood a word of that. 

          “Her feet,” Will said, pointing, “they’re wet.”  
          “Why would they be wet?” she marched over and bent down.  Sure enough, all three of the dog’s paws were soaking wet.  There were even small tufts of wet fur dotting her body.  Molly tugged the blanket from the base of the kennel and dabbed the areas gently.  “This isn’t from a bath.”

          “Salt water.”

          “Salt water?”

          “It’s salt water,” Will remarked.  “She’s been running in salt water.”

          “Now that she actually can’t have been.”

          Except that when she leaned close enough and smelled, the smell of antiseptic dispersed to reveal an underlying scent of sand and surf.  Molly opened her mouth to explain, but there were no words.  


	3. Wild Horses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Thomas Harris, Bryan Fuller, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only. 
> 
> Apologies for the delay! I have been caught between work, a play, and reading. Sweet reading!   
> Speaking of reading, please enjoy yourselves with this installment!

* * *

 

Wild Horses

 

Wolf Trap, Virginia

 Will expected a coyote.  He maintained a safe distance from the shadow struggling in the branches but strafed around to get a better look.  A moment of observation confirmed that the shadow was human.  Female.  Tall, long hair, colourful vocabulary.  Her words for the tree were not pleasant.  She slammed a palm against the torch in her hand to get it working again.  “I’m not trespassing,” she explained, shining the light against the ground.  “A horse got loose from your neighbour’s paddock.”

          Will wasn’t listening.  He couldn’t listen over the ringing in his ears, the phantom tugging of branches against his scalp.  There were still tufts of the woman’s hair locked in a wrestling match with the tree.  He had no choice but to walk forward and help detangle her. 

          “You haven’t happened to see a horse around, have you?” her fingers combed over Will’s as they set about freeing her from the branches.  Up close, he could finally place her voice.  Molly Foster, the veterinarian from Great Falls, was making a house call.  “Thank you,” she said upon liberation.

          “Isn’t this more of a job for animal control, Doctor?” Will had to ask. 

          Molly set her jaw and looked him straight in the eye.  He dodged her stare.  “He’s a very sick horse,” she replied.  “The owners are worried it’s eastern equine encephalitis.”

          “You’re just trying to give him a comfortable place to die then,” Will said uncomfortably, wishing she would stop looking at him.    
          “Formalize my diagnosis mainly.  Restless wandering is a pretty good indication…I take it you haven’t seen him?”  Will shook his head.  Molly nodded.  “Thanks for your time,” she said and started off into the forest again.  “Shout if you see him, will you?”

          He watched her disappear into the trees, allowing her guardedness, her intensity, her focus, to drain out of him before daring to turn away.  Winston greeted him, staring intently at Will as if reminding him of something he had forgotten to do. 

          There was no going back to the house now.  Will sighed.  He plunged into the trees after Molly.

* * *

 

Marathon, Florida

Will didn’t go to bars, not normally.  Drinking made him sensitive.  Being around people made him vulnerable.  He would suck back Scotch and stare at himself through the bartender’s eyes.  See the pathetic wretch he had become, the lonely, sunburnt, scarred sack of flesh he was now.  Will had never possessed very high self-esteem, but he had just enough to hate everything that Hannibal had made him.

          Another Scotch appeared in front of him, right next to his empty glass.  Will lifted his eyes from the bar to find the brunette from the beach at his side with a tumbler of whatever-he’s-having at her fingertips.  “Rumour had it you never leave the beach,” she said by way of a greeting. 

          “Everybody runs out of Scotch eventually,” he replied.

          She smiled self-assuredly.  “I’m Molly.”

          “I know,” Will prodded the glass.  “You own a shop in town.”  
          There was a sadness in her eyes that he couldn’t place then, an ache for someone lost and no delusion of them ever being found.  The smile on her face was genuine though.  Molly was not here to recreate the past; she was hopeful and optimistic about the future.  With Will.

          “You should get back to your friends now,” he warned her.

          “I’m not actually here with anyone.”  
          “You’re here for me,” Will said flatly.

          “I’m here _with_ you,” she corrected him, holding up her glass.  “Cheers.”

* * *

 

Wolf Trap, Virginia

“I don’t think the horse would have come through here,” Will said.  The branches were far too thick for even them to pass through.

          Molly finally stopped charging, though it was against her nature not to press forward.  “He couldn’t have gotten far,” she sighed.  She scanned the trees, dismissing them quickly for any sign of a staggering horse.

          Her desperation piqued Will’s interest.  Eastern equine encephalitis was a killer.  “You’re looking for a dead animal,” Will remarked pointedly.

          “Not dead yet,” Molly answered.  Hands on her hips, eyes straight ahead, she looked so certain.  Somewhere out there was a horse that she had decided to help.  There was no knocking her off-course now.

* * *

 

Marathon, Florida

Molly was claiming him slowly: first with the Scotch, then with her fingers.  She started inching her hands closer to him on the bar, and then gently, gingerly brushed her fingertips over his wrist bone. 

          Will’s breath caught in his throat.  “I’m no good for you,” he said, sounding as confident as she looked. 

          She flashed him a small hint of a smile and played with the neck of her beer bottle.  “I don’t ever come to this bar.  Ever.”

          “You never came to the beach before you saw me either.”

          “I didn’t come in here because I saw you.”  She wasn’t lying, though the pink flush on her cheeks reaffirmed her interest.  “I didn’t come to the beach for you either.  That’s two coincidences too many for me though.  Not that I believe in coincidence.”

          Her eyes drifted towards the monitor above the bar at long last.  Baseball.  She eyed the score sadly, mournfully, though her smile never faded.

          Will felt the stab of loss, sharp as death, in his heart, “I’m trying not to.”

* * *

      

Wolf Trap, Virginia

The spooked gelding’s body was steaming in the chilly air.  He began to rear when Molly emerged from the trees.  Will reached out to pull her back, but she placed a hand on his chest to protect him.  “Hey, beautiful,” she said pleasantly to the horse.  Her hand dropped from Will’s chest and stretched out towards the frightened animal. 

          The horse reared. 

 

* * *

 

Marathon, Florida

Will paid the bill, including her Scotch.  “Nice to see you again, Molly,” he was being at least halfway honest too. 

          She tossed back the rest of her whiskey.  Her hand landed on his wrist, “You too.” 

          He didn’t rebuff her immediately.  Being touched reminded Will that he was still alive, still present.  It wasn’t until Molly pulled her hand away that he realized she wasn’t looking to save him either.  She stared mortality square in the face and was looking for someone with whom to share her heartbeat.  Will wore impending doom in every feature; he was the best partner for the end of all things. 

* * *

 

        

Wolf Trap, Virginia

Molly ripped off her coat.  The cold left her breathless.  She strode toward the horse with her jacket in her hands.  “Hey, it’s okay.  It’s okay,” she spoke soothingly.  The horse backed away from her, forelegs stomping, threatening. 

          Will eased his way in her wake.  She was going to get stomped to death.  “Don’t…” he warned her.

          Molly wasn’t listening.  Her hands moved towards the horse, offering the coat like an olive branch. 

 

* * *

 

Marathon, Florida

They left at the same time, and for the first half block, Molly was never more than ten feet behind Will.  He turned and looked back only once before stopping.  “I’m no good for you,” he told the nighttime sky. 

          “Only one way to find out.”

          Will turned back to look at her.  Molly shifted her weight from one foot to the other.  She hugged herself against the chill but kept one hand slightly poised towards Will. 

 

* * *

 

Wolf Trap, Virginia

“Come here,” Molly urged.  She drew her coat up to neck height.  “Come on…”

          The gelding shuddered, terrified, but was no longer stomping.    

          Will found himself inching with her.

 

* * *

 

Marathon, Florida

She was just so direct.  One look at her and Will knew exactly where the night was headed.  Knew he was safe, that she was strong enough to keep the monsters at bay.  Molly was a woman for whom time was static.  She lived absolutely in the present, moment by moment.  If he walked away, she would too, without looking back.  

 

* * *

 

Wolf Trap, Virginia

The horse stayed its ground.  Molly shifted closer.  Her hands were shaking under the jacket, but she never stopped moving. 

 

* * *

 

Marathon, Florida

Will walked slowly in her direction.

 

* * *

 

Wolf Trap, Virginia

Molly draped her jacket over the horse’s head and hugged his snout, whispering sweet nothings as she did. 

          Will’s head fell silent: the buzzing, the hum of ideas, the steady stream of feeling emanating from the startled horse and Dr. Foster.  All he could hear was Molly’s breathless promises, “It’s okay.  It’s okay…”

 

* * *

 

Marathon, Florida

“Is this okay?” she asked as she reached for the bottom of his shirt. 

          Will drew a shaky breath.  He scanned the messy interior of his trailer, fixing his gaze on the door instead of on her flushed face, her fervent stare.  She would leave if he told her.  They could end this.

          …but there was no turning back.  Time registered as a steady progression of moments.  Will would have to contend with the memory of her hands, her lips, her eyes; he would have to negotiate with the perspective she’d given him.  That there was no saving the either of them, not from darkness or death, but there was comfort in being held in one’s final moments.

 

* * *

 

Wolf Trap, Virginia

The horse dropped to his knees only a few yards from its paddock. 

          Molly tore her coat from his eyes and wrapped her arms around his head.  Her hands drew long strokes on his fevered neck and face. 

 

* * *

 

Marathon, Florida

“Yes,” Will said, guiding his shirt up from his hips.  “Yes, this is okay.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the book, Molly husband played baseball, which she watches when she is sad. 
> 
> Also in the book, Hannibal left Will's abdomen horribly scarred; hence, his apprehension.


	4. A Tale of Two Cities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Thomas Harris, Bryan Fuller, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only. 
> 
> I had half a mind to scrap this whole fic, start it back at square one, and I still might go back and play around with my prose a bit. The inspiration was just lacking for the past couple of weeks. The new episodes are constantly reshaping my ideas about Will, about the way that he handles relationship. And then, yesterday, the third season was confirmed, Will and Hannibal spoke about fatherhood, and I reread alovelylittlescandal's comment on the previous chapter about Willy, and this chapter just…clicked. I hope it works. 
> 
> Some dialogue in this chapter appears in another of my fics – 5 Reasons.

 

* * *

 

A Tale of Two Cities

 

-Sugarloaf Key, Florida-

The lace curtains cut dimples in the sunlight and cast waves over the rumpled sheets.  Molly Foster occupied the brightest spot, face buried deep in her pillow, as her naked back, arms, and exposed calves drank in the morning.  She had reserved the shadowy spots on the bed for Will out of kindness, his sleep habits – or lack thereof – being apparent from their first encounter.

          He spent several long minutes studying her, forming constellations from the freckles on her upper back.  His gaze eventually drifted to the bedroom, her bedroom, a place he hadn’t studied much before plunging into the bed.  Molly had little time for trinkets and was largely unsentimental with regards to interior design.  Her furniture was pragmatic – bed for sleeping, wardrobe and vanity for dressing.  She had a few pictures, some local art, and the occasional salvaged item dotting her shelves.  From these, Will clarified his profile of her: Molly’s parents were deceased but she had found surrogates, an elderly couple, family friends perhaps.  She owned one clock but kept it face down on the night table; time was no longer a concern.  She had been married and happily; she was no longer and didn’t want to talk about it unless asked. 

          The downstairs creaked with sounds of life: footsteps and cupboard doors, dishes rattling against the table.  Molly mumbled something, grabbed the blanket, and ducked underneath, claiming a few moments for herself from the grand scheme of things.  Will rose slowly from the bed, curious.  There was no evidence of anyone else living in the house, though his attention had been decidedly elsewhere last night. 

          No sooner was he standing, Will was struck by the distant sound of a screen door opening, of keys jangling in struggle with an arthritic lock.  He cast a paranoid glance over his shoulder.  The sound was so impossibly real, at once present in the room with him and yet so distant – both in time and space.  That was the sound of his door opening in Wolf Trap.  Those were footsteps on his old floorboards.  His dogs were barking, sniffling, whining.  A chill rattled through Will. 

          Someone was wandering over his grave.

         

* * *

 

-Wolf Trap, Virginia-

There were _so many dogs_.

          Molly was overwhelmed before she had kicked her boots off.  She ended up at the centre of a melee.  Tongues, paws, scruffs, and noses rushed up to greet her, desperate as only dogs can be for new loyalties.  She couldn’t tell who she had and hadn’t petted until the crowd finally dispersed, satisfied, and resumed hovering. 

          “Hey, Winston,” she inspected him visually.  The gash on his foreleg is healing nicely.  All the stitches were intact, which was surprising given that Winston isn’t wearing a cone.  Most dogs would have chewed through their own torso with those kinds of odds.  This would be easier than she thought.  Appointment over; housesitting could begin. 

          She was on her tip toes all the way to the kitchen; the floors felt bitterly cold under her feet.  The dogs didn’t seem to notice.  They milled about in anticipation of love and food.  Molly couldn’t get more than a couple of steps without one bumping into her.  She hurried the last of her steps to the back door, threw it open, and let them all outside for a run.  Winston was careful to pace himself, she noticed, though he was nonetheless excited to be moving.

          The silence of the house alarmed her almost as much as the cold.  Molly’s ears rang from the quiet, from the stillness.  Old as the house was, it betrayed nothing, and possessed an uninhabited quality that cold-clawed at her brain stem.  She had grown up on a farm, but there were always sounds there: horses in the stables, cattle, some sheep during her teen years; Dad and his team of underling marching to and fro, the spurs rattling on their boots; Ma’s pickup roaring sickly down the driveway.  There was no doubt in her mind that Will had chosen the silence for a reason, but Molly’s heart ached from the thought.  There were only a few kinds of people who would choose to be this far removed from the world.  Will Graham was of the uncomfortable sort: sad but not hopelessly so.  He kept his life as small and secret as possible from everyone but himself.

          She looked past the obvious then, narrowing her view to the pieces instead of the whole.  Will’s presence could be felt along the handles of his knifes and the slits in his cutting board.  He lingered in the scents of salt and coffee, in the sheer neatness of the space.  When she walked back into the living room, Molly found herself picking him out from the immaculately-kept workbench.  His fishing lures spoke of a meticulous craftsman, an intricate mind, and a deep appreciation for solitude. 

          The floorboards creaked suddenly.  A shadow formed in Molly’s periphery but was gone the second she looked up. 

          “Hello?”

          Dead silence.

 

* * *

 

-Sugarloaf Key, Florida-

Will walked as far away from the chills as he could.  He didn’t get further than the bottom of the stairs. 

          There was a boy at the breakfast table.  Seven, eight, maybe?  He had Molly’s hair, eyes, and chin, but he got his cheeks and shoulders from his father.  He glanced up from his cereal, and no amount of clothing could defend Will against the lad’s penetrating stare. 

          The chills gathered at the base of Will’s spine again.  A shadow hovered in his periphery; he ignored it.  “Hello,” he mustered.

          The boy poked at his cereal.  “Hi,” his tone was flat, but that didn’t mean he was uninterested.  He turned slightly in his seat and kept staring through the corners of his eyes.

          Will couldn’t shake the ghost from Wolf Trap following him around.  He unburdened himself, “I’m Will.”  The footsteps echoed on in his brain. 

          “Hi,” the boy said again.  “Good to meet you.”

          “Oh,” Molly appeared on the stairs behind Will.  She beamed through a yawn and a scrub of her face.  “Good morning, sunshine.”

          “Morning, _Mom_ ,” the emphasis was for Will. 

          She rubbed a hand on Will’s shoulder on her way into the kitchen.  “You heading out?”

          “Yeah,” the boy absorbed her touches to the top of his head.  He sat patiently through her kiss to his temple, her clutching his shoulders.  Molly was reassuring herself that he was still there with her, that everything she cared about in the world was still within reach.  Pictures were meaningless; they were lies, taunts, teases.  She needed tangible, living things.  Her house was a conservatory. 

 

* * *

 

-Wolf Trap, Virginia-

The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end.  Molly hugged herself on a search for the thermostat.  The cold had to be phantom, a response to the solitude instead of the actual temperature.  She was not alone, and yet she had to be.  There was no one else but the dogs for miles in any direction. 

          She found the dog food on her travels and distracted herself by filling the bowls.  Kneeling on the floor, Molly forced her mind to stop.  She was being silly, letting the silence get to her like this.  The floor wasn’t as cold on her knees as it felt on her toes.  She wasn’t disconnected; she was looking for ways to fill the silence, and ghosts seemed like a logical conclusion.

          They weren’t the right conclusion, not in the least because they didn’t exist.  There was life here in Will’s house but only in controlled amounts.  Molly was used to inviting the whole universe into her; Will wanted to keep as much of the world out as possible.  The world was a hard beast to keep caged though.  Eventually pieces found their way through the bars.

          Pieces like the person standing in the open doorway to the kitchen.  Molly nearly jumped out of her own skin.  She pressed a hand over her heart to keep it in her chest.  One blink though and the person was gone, replaced again by the empty air.  Nevertheless, her memory still bore the imprint of Will Graham standing, staring through her, looking older and exhausted than he did at the office.  

          She replaced the dog food in the hallway cupboard.  Cup of tea.  She needed a cup of tea.

         

* * *

 

-Sugarloaf Key, Florida-

“When will you be back?” Molly asked, fingers laced over her son’s head. 

          “Three.  Four-ish.”

          “Good,” she kissed her son again.  “The motor’s fixed on the boat now.  I thought we’d take it out tonight.”

          “You fixed the motor?”

          Will nodded.  The boy let his guard down a little, having made a decision based on that information alone.  Fixing the boat motor meant that he wasn’t a casual fling.  He was reliable, hard-working, and willing to help Mom.  “Thanks,” the boy said. 

          Now, Molly made the introductions, “Will, this is my son, Willy.”

          “Good to meet you, Willy,” Will said, nodding.

          Willy nodded back, “Likewise.”

* * *

 

-Wolf Trap, Virginia-

“Oh.”  
          There was a man in the kitchen.  Molly hadn’t heard him come in over the ringing in her ears.  His sharp dress was a stark contrast to the rugged simplicity of Will’s house.  He did not appear at all surprised to see her, though he said nothing, like he had forgotten his lines.  Molly took the liberty of starting the conversation, “Hello.  Can I help you with something?”  
  
          “I’m a friend of Will Graham’s,” the man replied quickly.  He glanced around the kitchen.  “I knew he was out of town for a few days, and he normally asks me to mind the dogs for him.”  
  
          “Oh, I’m sorry,” though for what Molly had no idea.  Something about the man demanded deference.  “I was just coming by today to check on Winston anyways though, and Will asked if I wouldn’t mind feeding them too.”

          He paused just long enough for her to notice but not long enough for Molly to know why.  “I’m terribly sorry to have startled you,” he gave her a slight nod. 

          Molly extended her hand, “Not at all.  I’m Molly Foster, Will’s veterinarian.”

          “Hannibal Lecter.  A pleasure.”

          “Likewise,” she withdrew her hand.  Her fear of the house began to quell.  “I was just about to put the kettle on.  Can I interest you in a cup of tea?”

          “I couldn’t impose,” Lecter said politely.

          “No imposition,” Molly felt her fears subside.  She tried to hide the flush in her cheeks. 

          Lecter smiled warmly.  His eyes still had the look of cold steel.  “If you insist.”

 

* * *

 

-Sugarloaf Key, Florida-

Molly walked her son out the front door.  “Bye,” Willy said out of courtesy.  Will waved and watched the two through the screen.  This wasn’t the usual turn of events, not that Molly and his relationships had been usual.  He would have expected her to mention her son by now.  Then again, her failure to mention Willy spoke to a larger feature of Molly’s character.  She was a planet, carrying her whole world with her everywhere she went.  She lived her life on a collision course, and Will had just so happened to get caught in her gravitational pull.  Being with her required a plunge straight into the torpor of her reality.

          “I didn’t know you had a son,” Will said when she re-entered the house.

          Molly shrugged.  “Well, I do,” she smiled, and then placed her hands on her hips.  “Is that a problem?”

          Will was already falling and enjoying every second of it.  “No.  No, it’s uh…it’s the opposite actually.”

          He found himself smiling too.  Sadly, but still.

          Molly beamed.  “Good,” on to other things, “Breakfast?”

 

* * *

 

Happy reading!


	5. Through the Looking Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Thomas Harris, Bryan Fuller, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only. 
> 
> Worlds are colliding.

* * *

 

Through the Looking Glass

 

-Great Falls, Virginia-

Will shot a glance between the police cruiser and the porch he was standing on.  There was a police officer at his side and another woman standing in the open doorway, watching him, waiting.  An explanation eluded him.  Will had no idea where he was, much less what he was doing there.  The last thing he remembered was falling asleep _in a bed_ , not on a porch. 

          “Will, are you okay?”

          He swallowed hard.  “Where am I?”

          The officer spoke around Will, “We told him on the way over.”  
  
          “I think he just woke up,” she stepped into view. 

          Will squinted, scrubbed his face, tried to clear his vision.  The woman was Molly but…not.  Younger.  Fewer freckles.  Even the dark couldn’t account for the changes.  Will knew Molly owned strictly tank tops and boxer shorts for sleeping (on the occasions she wore clothing to bed).  This Molly was wearing flannel pants and a hoodie from Colorado University.  “I didn’t know you graduated,” was all Will could say. 

          Molly nodded.  She no longer thought he was awake.  “That is how I got my degree.”  
  
          “I didn’t know you had a degree.”

          She looked towards the officer.  “You found him walking?”

          “Just wandering through the neighbourhood,” the officer replied.  “He mentioned your name.”

          Molly turned back to Will.  Her confusion subsided or was, at the very least, no longer important.  “Come on inside,” she said, holding open the door.  “Thank you, officer.”

          “No problem, Doc,” the officer marched off the porch back to her cruiser. 

          Will stood dumbly on the porch.  He hugged himself against the chilly air.  “I’m sorry,” he didn’t know what else to say.

          “Don’t be,” Molly replied.  She was still holding the door open, but Will couldn’t remember how to walk.  He was still trying to catch up with everything that had happened while he was asleep.  Maybe he was still asleep.  The only plausible explanation was that this was a dream.  A very vivid dream, if the cold was any indication.  “Come inside.” He tried not to jump when she placed her hand on his shoulder. 

          The foyer had the same uncanny appearance as Molly did.  Her décor was still sparse and tended towards antiquities.  There were frivolities here that Molly he knew wouldn’t have tolerated though.  Pictures, paperbacks, two beautiful but impractical jackets: he was dreaming of an earlier incarnation of the same woman, or perhaps a completely different incarnation.  He hadn’t decided.

          She welcomed him into the living room, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders as he dropped onto the couch.  Will was wearing nothing but his boxer briefs and a t-shirt.  His feet were a mess of cut, scrapes, and dirt.  Molly paid absolutely no mind.  She drifted into the kitchen, ran the tap, and returned with a bowl of warm water. 

          “I put the kettle on,” she admitted somewhat embarrassedly.  Her blush pinked out her freckles all the way to the tops of her ears.  Will watched as she sank down in the chair across from him.  “Have you been drinking tonight?”  
  
          “Yes,” Will stared at her, still processing.  She wasn’t built from the same pieces as the Molly Foster he knew.  She had all the time in the world to sit and wait for answers.  “Not enough to black out.”

          “Did you black out?”

          “Yes.”  And time travelled.  Or space travelled.  Will tugged the blanket tighter around him. 

          “Do you have a history of sleepwalking?”

          “I didn’t know Colorado had a medical program.”  
  
          “I went to a veterinary program, you know that,” she was getting concerned again.  “Are you awake, Will?”

          “No,” he laughed.  “No, I’m not.”  
  
          Young Molly was even more concerned now.  She placed the water on the floor.  “Those cuts need to be cleaned,” she said. 

          Will watched as she wrung out a cloth, searching for any trace of the woman he knew.  “You’re a veterinarian,” he stated.  The words felt wrong on his tongue.  Molly – the Molly he knew, the _real_ (?) Molly – cared deeply for animals, but she didn’t have the patience for postsecondary.  “You’re…my veterinarian.”  
  
          She stopped reaching for his foot and stared at him.  Will stared back.  In real life, he was still working on meeting her gaze, but in a dream, he felt confident.  Molly didn’t feel the same way.  She looked more concerned from the eye contact than he usually did.  “Did you take anything else with the alcohol?”

          “No.”

          “Do you have a history of sleepwalking?”  
  
          “Not for years.”  Maybe.  Will didn’t know what year it was supposed to be.  His subconscious had never played a game like this before.  He was used to ethereal images, to Jungian symbols, to grotesque re-enactments of murder.  Sleepwalking to a bizarro version of his occasional bedmate was just about the strangest dream he ever had.  “What do you know about me, Doctor Foster?”

          Molly didn’t know where to begin.  She caught his foot in her hand and scrubbed clinically at the arch, taking her time with the widest of the gashes.  The water felt surprisingly real.  Will wondered if he would wake up to a flooded trailer.  “I know you work for the FBI.”

          Will’s brow furrowed.  “I’ve…never told you that.”

          But this wasn’t Molly: this was a representation of his subconscious.  He fell silent again.

          “You mentioned it in passing,” she shrugged.  “You love dogs, especially strays.  You also love to fish.  I don’t think you like people much.  Your house is pretty remote.”

          “You’ve been to my house?”

          Molly put his foot down gently.  She raised her hands in mild surrender and kept her eyes on the floor.  “I think I need to get you to a hospital,” she rose from her chair and headed to the kitchen, stopping only when the confusion became too much to bear.  “I’ve known you for six months, Will.  Admittedly, it’s been a weird six months, but I…we…” 

          He didn’t her to say anything more.  Evidently, his projection of her overlapped with details he knew from his present circumstances.  Will held his tongue for a long moment as she aired her grievances with every breath.  “I’m dreaming,” Will said finally, reassuring them both.  Real or not, he couldn’t bear to absorb the hurt on her face as his own. 

          “You said you had nightmares.  I didn’t know they were this severe.”  
          “What else did I say?” maybe the purpose of this was self-discovery.  His brain had concocted a mirror in which to see himself, to reflect on the scarred and empty shell he had become. 

          “Nothing.  You don’t tell me anything,” Molly dropped her hands on her hips.  Will wasn’t surprised: he had always been good at keeping secrets from himself.  “Look, I know you’ve been seeing a psychiatrist.  Should I call him instead?”  
  
          The wind was knocked clean out of Will’s chest.  His hands shook under the blanket.  Everything about the dream was far too real: first the cold, then the water, now the dread creeping its way up from the scar across his stomach.  “You know about my psychiatrist,” he repeated.  The taste of blood bubbled at the base of his tongue. 

          Molly blanched but held her ground.  “He stopped by the house when I was feeding the dogs.  I didn’t want to say anything.  You barely mentioned it before.”

          “You _know_ my psychiatrist.” 

          “We had lunch together.”

          The bonds holding his chest went slack.  All of a sudden, Will couldn’t catch his breath.  He waited for the crushing blow of the dream: the image of Molly slashed to pieces, her ear emerging from his throat, Hannibal Lecter charging out of the kitchen.  His ears rang with Abigail’s shrill scream, and the scar burned hot, loud, and angrily from his stomach. 

          Molly disappeared.  The ringing disappeared.  Will forced himself to hold his breath.  He didn’t want to see; he had already seen too much.  He clenched his eyes closed so tightly they hurt.

          The world was very much as he left it when he opened them.  Strange-Molly’s living room with its strange, youthful touches: she emerged from the kitchen with a mug of tea in one hand, her phone in the other. 

          “Don’t call Dr. Lecter,” Will commanded her.

          “You need to have your head examined,” she replied, handing him the tea.  “You’re undergoing some kind of major neurological event here.”

          “I’m not _insane_ ,” he knew better than that now.  This Molly-shaped version of his younger self, this projection of his anxieties, this dream figure was playing on old fears.  Hannibal Lecter and mental illness: really.  Will had laid those horrors to rest six feet under in a stone cell at Baltimore Psychiatric Hospital. 

          “I’m not saying you’re insane,” Molly corrected herself, “but how am I more worked up over this than you?  You’re found sleepwalking in my neighbourhood – ten miles from home.  You can’t remember key details about my personal history.  You have gray hair.  You’re still insisting that you’re dreaming.”

          “I have to be dreaming.”  This couldn’t be real. 

          “Why?”

          Will had never tried to tell a person in his dreams that they weren’t real.  His subconscious was usually very aware of its artificiality, informed as it might be by reality.  He parsed through the mixed messages: first Hannibal, then the age gap, then the fact that it was her, Molly, a woman who picked him up from the bar in Florida.  “Because,” he stared right through her, back to Florida, “because good things don’t happen to me.  Not my psychiatrist, not walking ten miles in the dead of night with no memory.  Not you.”

          The expression that crossed her face was as much a shock to Will’s system as the cold he experienced upon waking.  Molly was an emotional chimera and none of her feelings suited her.  In a few years, she would be suspicious of such a line.  She would be curious; she would prod.  He didn’t know how to imagine her any differently from that.  Molly had always been a very practical being.  This Molly was young, she was idealistic.  She wanted to believe Will, and while he meant what he said, Will was hiding so much that she was too sympathetic to ask about. 

          “I can’t dream you like this,” he admitted breathlessly. 

          There it was: the suspicion.  The desperation for truth.  “I’m calling your psychiatrist,” she said. 

          Just like that, Will woke up.   

 

* * *

 

-Marathon, Florida-

He tore off the blankets.  The trailer was buzzing with activity.  His dogs were yelping, whining, terrified.  Will shot up, searching the dark for intruders, only to realize that he was the intruder.  They were barking at him, about him, for him.  Will reached out for them, but they recoiled from his scent. 

          His vision flashed with impossible images: nighttime in Virginia, wind whistling through evergreen trees; damp earth and asphalt; cold, shadows, and Molly, five years younger, in a Columbia sweat shirt, planning to call Hannibal Lecter.  Will threw on the bedside lamp and relished the burn against his retinas.  He was welcomed home with the sight of his own trailer back in reality, back in his real life, where his dreams were filled with normal things like psychopaths and murder most foul.

          Several deep breaths helped him settle enough to sleep again.  The dogs were willing to approach him by that point too, which helped put Will at ease even more.  He tugged a towel free from the rack nearby, scrubbed his face and hair, and then covered his pillow.  The nightmares hadn’t been this bad since his illness.

          Will turned off the light, and then immediately turned it back on again.  He kicked to wake himself up.

          Both his feet were dirty.   

 

* * *

 

Happy reading!  


	6. A Midwinter Night's Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If space is infinite then there’s tons of yous out there and tons of mes.”  
> “I like that thought. Somewhere out there, I’m having a good time.” (Rabbit Hole)  
> Two different Molly Fosters. Two different Will Grahams. Just two out of innumerable possibilities. AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Thomas Harris, Bryan Fuller, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only. 
> 
> I’ve been wanting to play around with the formatting since chapter one, and it finally struck me as to how I could make it work. The text bounces back and forth in this chapter. In terms of the chronology, I’m working under the assumption that Florida-Will is canonical. His experiences will reflect his origins on the show. Wolf Trap-Will is alternate universe; his story will borrow from the show but gradually deviate from it. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy! Thank you for reading!

* * *

 

A Midwinter Night’s Dream

 

-Wolf Trap, Virginia-

Will wasn’t expecting her, and it wasn’t like Molly to just show up.  Still, she arrived in a flurry, looking dishevelled, the second her workday ended.

          “You haven’t slept,” he noted by way of a greeting.  Frenzy overcame him; confusion clouded his thoughts.  Will extricated himself from her experience. 

          Molly stared through him, like she was seeing a ghost.  “No, I haven’t,” she scanned his hairline.  “I couldn’t.  Not after...”

          “After…?”

          “Where were you last night?” she tried to sound friendly, but fear tightened her voice. 

          Will moved to her, “I was here.”  He reached for her hands.  “Molly…”  
          She took his hand in hers, nodding.  “I thought as much.  I just…I had to be sure.  Something happened last night, something I don’t understand.

          He was gentle with her.  Molly never showed this kind of anxiety before.  “What happened?”

          Molly didn’t know where to begin.  “Have you ever had a dream that you were so sure was real?”

          “I don’t think I’ve ever had a dream that I didn’t think was real,” Will agreed. 

          “I dreamt you were at my house last night.  You’d been picked up by a patrol cop sleepwalking through my neighbourhood.  I gave you a blanket, cup of tea, started…washing your feet.  You looked different: older.  The strangest thing though: when I woke up, I was sitting in my living room with a bowl of warm water.  The blanket I gave you was on the couch, and I was halfway through making the phone call I had been in the dream.

 

“The only thing missing was you.”

 

-Sugarloaf Key, Florida”

Will didn’t know how to respond, “I’ve never heard that one before.”  
          Molly smiled warmly, “Well, it’s true: we really missed you out on the water last night.  The motor runs like a dream.”  She finally took stock of his appearance, furrowing her brow as she did like she was analyzing a piece of evidence.  “Are you alright, Will?  You don’t look well.”

          “I don’t feel well,” he agreed, prodding the tea cup she had placed in front of him.  “I’ve been having trouble sleeping.”

“Trouble how?” Molly asked. 

          Will’s smile was as broken as his thoughts at the moment.  “Where do I begin?” He asked aloud.  “I used to sleepwalk.  Apparently, I’ve started again, but this time I’m dreaming that I’m walking at the same time.  Walking in places I’ve never been, to people I…”

          He stared at her, trying to trace the features she possessed in the here-and-now to the Molly from his dream.  Her hair had been darker there, and her freckles had been more pronounced against her cheeks.  She was younger, less worldly, without the heaviness of grief that sometimes clouded this Molly’s features.  Will finished his statement:  “Walking to people I’ve never met.”

          He waited for her to interject, but Molly was sill patiently listening to him, waiting for answers to arise instead of prompting them.  Will couldn’t help but smile despite his nerves.  He hid his hands under the tabletop.   

 “Where else have you lived?  Besides here?”

Molly shrugged, “Little bits of everywhere.”

“Virginia?”

“No.  Passed through it a bunch of times but never stayed.”

“And you never went to university?”

“Nope,” she took a sip of her own tea.  “Why do you ask?” 

          “I dreamt about you.  A version of you.”

Molly smirked, “Was she hot?”

          Will laughed.  “That was not the follow-up question I was expecting.”

          “Well, this was not the conversation I thought we would be having,” she reached across the table and put her hand on his.  He had to meet her stare; her eyes were everywhere at once.  “What are we really talking about, Will?”

          He let the warmth of her palm wash through his fingers, and when his mouth opened again to speak, words started tumbling out of him that he didn’t intend: 

 

“I’m not crazy.”

 

-Wolf Trap, Virginia-

Molly shook her head and repeated herself.  “I’m not crazy: I swear, I’m not.”

          “No,” Will agreed.  He drew her towards the bed slowly, giving her the chance to sit.  “Do you have a history of sleepwalking?”

          “No,” she replied, “do you?”

          “No.”

          She sank onto the bed.  “It felt so real.  I blinked and you were gone!  I’m sorry: I’m not making any sense.”

          “I wouldn’t worry,” he reassured her, still gentle, even as he sat down next to her.  The emotional torpor nagging at his senses began to settle somewhat.  She was relaxing in his presence.  “Generally, I’m the one trying to discern waking from dreaming.”

          “This didn’t feel like a dream.”

          “They never do,” Will agreed.

          Molly stared at him: the stare of a woman who wanted to know but didn’t want to ask.  Will’s defences fortified in response.  The question was not as bad as he anticipated.  “What do you dream about?”  
          Will’s hand smoothed over her thigh.  He searched her slacks for the words to answer with, the gentle euphemisms that would approach the truth but dampen it at the same time.  The best he could manage was, “You don’t want to know what I dream about.  I don’t want to know what I dream about.”

          Normally, Molly didn’t pry, but whatever happened last night opened something inside her that needed to know him.  “Murder?” she wondered.

          His hand cupped around her waist.  He watched the vein in her neck throb: wanton, distracted.  Her pupils dilated.  “Worse than murder.”

          “What’s worse than murder?”

 

“The impulses that murders are made of.”

 

-Sugarloaf Key, Florida-

          Will didn’t know how else to describe it.  Thankfully, Molly said nothing after his confession.  She sat, absorbing the information, stitching together her impression of Will from the scraps of information he gave her.  “I was a profiler with the FBI and a teacher at the academy.”

          “Why did you leave?”

          “I got too close.”

“Too close to what?”

          Funny how, after all these years and miles, Will could still feel the slash of the linoleum knife through his bowels.  He wanted to tell her, but he couldn’t find the words.  Hannibal had been so much more of a friend than an enemy.  He was a whole new breed of psychopath.  The DSM didn’t have labels for him yet.  Will didn’t know what chance he stood at coming up with ones.

          Molly stumbled on the question through the silence, “To a murderer?”

          It was a close approximation of the truth, but Will needed her to see over the edge of his psyche.  He needed her measure the drop he took from sanity into madness during those dark weeks after Baltimore.  “To myself,” he clarified.

 

“Most days, I don’t know where I end and the darkness begins.”

 

-Wolf Trap, Virginia-

Will finished speaking.  The words taste like metal on his tongue, and they vibrated at a different frequency than the rest of his speech.  “Most days,” he tried speaking again, waiting for the aural distortion to overcome him once more.  He could have sworn he heard an echo, a mirror of his own voice, when he had spoken just moment before.

          Molly didn’t notice.  She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again.  This wasn’t the man who had sat in her living room last night, the man who knew himself and her so clearly.

 

“I don’t know what it’s like to not know who I am,” she admitted, “or whether or not _this_ is real.”

 

-Sugarloaf Key, Florida-

          No sooner had she uttered this, than Molly made a face.  She cast a suspicious glance over her shoulder.

          “What is it?” Will asked.

          She shook her head.  “Nothing,” she admitted, “I just thought I heard something.  Do you think you’ve started sleepwalking again?”

          Will shook his head.  “I thought it was my psyche compelling me to bare my soul to you,” he smiled at the thought, “but I’m not sure.  This didn’t feel like one of my dreams – real as most of my dreams feel.”

 

“But it couldn’t have happened,” Molly reminded him.

“No,” Will had to agree.  “No, it couldn’t have happened.”

 

-Wolf Trap, Virginia-

“And yet…”

          But Molly didn’t say that.  She drew herself to Will until their faces hovered within inches of one another.  He was playing with the hem of her shirt by that point.  “I don’t like this feeling,” she nuzzled his jaw. 

          “What feeling?”  
          “Feeling like I’m missing something,” a chill rushed through her.  Will rubbed her arms to no avail.  “I’m probably just tired.”

          “I can drive you home.”

 

“I’d like to stay.”  
“I’d like you to stay.”

 

-Sugarloaf Key, Florida-

          Molly flashed a small smile.  “Stay,” she urged him.  “I can make sure you don’t go wandering off tonight.”

          “I’m not going to ask you to babysit.”  
          “You’re not asking.  I’m telling: stay.  I want you to stay tonight.”  
          Will poked at his tea cup.  His brain tried to grasp the situation but managed to come up short.  He hadn’t known what it was like to be cared for in so long that he had forgotten how to respond to kindness. 

          “Besides,” Molly took another sip of her tea.  “I wouldn’t describe what I had in mind as ‘babysitting.’”

 

The covers joined their clothing on the floor, and the sun sank with them into the mattress.

 

-Wolf Trap, Virginia-

Molly fumbled through the darkness for a light of some kind.  She could hear activity, but her surroundings smelled unfamiliar and unknown.  Where was she?

          The bedside lamp blazed to life.  Molly found herself at the centre of Will’s herd of dogs, each one demanding, urging her out of bed.  The room was cold outside the covers, colder than she expected.  She searched for an open window and was stunned, instead, to find the front door swinging on its hinges. 

          Maya, the three-legged golden collie, barked at her.  Molly stared into the inky blackness of night beyond the screen door.  She fumbled on the opposite side of the bed for warmth, but the mattress was cold.  “Will?” she asked the darkness.

          He was gone. 

 

* * *

 

Happy reading!       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	7. The Bermuda Triangle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Thomas Harris, Bryan Fuller, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only. 
> 
> It has been a long time! I teach, so June is a mess of a month for me. The beginning of July was no picnic either. I was traveling, visiting, and then, when I did return home, I was relocating. I’ve only just settled into my new digs, and I’m happy to say that the writer’s block I’ve been suffering (because bad things travel in groups) seems to have dissipated. I am much obliged to everyone who has stuck with this fic, encouraged me with it, and who do come back to read it. Hope you are surviving the he-ate-us! 
> 
> This chapter contains references/spoilers for season one’s “Buffet Froid” and season two’s “Su-zakana”.

* * *

 

The Bermuda Triangle

                                                                    

-Quantico, Virginia-

“Wait,” the world had revolved several seconds ahead of her.  Molly needed to catch up.  She let Crawford’s office come back into focus.  “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”   
  
          Jack Crawford had lied to her before.  He had cursed her, challenged her, and disrespected her.  He had never been apologetic to her, least of all when she had just cursed, challenged, and disrespected him.  “No, Dr. Foster.  No, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”  
  
          Molly could no longer muster the ire to yell.  Anger seemed like a distant memory clouded entirely by guilt and disbelief.  Jack Crawford, _the_ Jack Crawford, didn’t know.  “Will isn’t well,” she informed him.

          “He has been under a lot of duress lately,” Jack replied. 

          Her outrage flared back to life with a vengeance.  “Guy I know got stomped in the face by a horse and has to relearn how to tie his shoes: that’s duress, Agent Crawford.  What Will’s going through is more than just duress!  You know where I found him last night?  In the forest: _sleepwalking_.  When he woke up, he had to ask me whether or not he was still alive.  He has no short term memory, barely any long term memory.  He’s blacking out hours of the day!”

          Jack gripped the back of his chair for support.  He had to, by the looks of it, the weight of her words being far too much for him to bear.  He offered no rebuke, no rebuttal, no furious command for her to get the hell out of his office.  Molly’s body shook from something other than anger.  Regret, maybe.  “You know.  Of course, you know.”

          The agent straightened.  “I know that he is behaving oddly.”  
          “They teach understatement here at the academy, Agent Crawford?”

          She could feel the temperature in the room rise.  Finally, Molly had his full attention.  “I also know that if Will’s behaviour was more than that, his psychiatrist would let me know.”

          “Dr. Lecter might not know.”  
  
          “What might I not know?”

          Molly smelled him before she saw him: the cut of his aftershave, the bold bite of his wool suit.  She wiped her tears and turned to where the good doctor stood in the doorway, a cold front wafting in against Crawford’s hot swell.  “I’m sorry to interrupt, Agent Crawford.  Dr. Foster,” he nodded politely.  “I did not realize you were in a meeting.”

          “You could not have arrived at a better time,” Jack said.  “Dr. Foster was just informing me that Will’s condition may be more severe than just stress.”

          Normally, Molly liked Lecter’s stare.  She appreciated his clear vision, his impatience for the extraneous but profound love of the meticulous.  Today, though, she felt his stare cut a straight line to her heart.  Her first instinct was to apologize.  “I’m worried about him, Dr. Lecter,” she drew her arms to her chest, holding herself together.  “Has he told you about his sleepwalking?  His blackouts?”

          “Will mentioned that he had experienced episodes of disassociation.  Agent Crawford witnessed one just this morning.”

          Molly almost flipped Jack’s desk.  “You did know!”

          “I know that Will Graham has a rare psychological profile,” Jack only just managed to keep himself from shouting: for Dr. Lecter’s sake, not hers.  “I know that he can empathize with serial killers.  What he did this morning can easily be explained as duress.”  
  
          “This is not duress,” Molly had already exhausted herself with that explanation.  She looked to Dr. Lecter for support.  “Duress doesn’t make someone sleepwalk for miles down a cold highway.”

          “There’s little precedent for what duress will do to someone with Will’s psychology.” 

          Molly sensed a negative prognosis buried under Dr. Lecter’s polite response.  She didn’t want to know, didn’t need to know, _already knew_ that this was something worse than duress.  Whatever Dr. Lecter seemed to think was just worse than what she had expected.  “So what’s going to happen?” she directed her best glare at Jack.  “Seems pretty obvious what’s causing Will duress.”  
  
          Jack played his ace, “That’s Will’s call.”

          “It’s your call too,” Molly noted.  She looked to Dr. Lecter and added, gently, “And yours.”

          “You don’t trust Will to make his own decisions?”

          Molly bristled at the faint hints of passive-aggression in Dr. Lecter’s tone.  She didn’t trust her judgment enough to yell at him though.  “I’m not sure I trust Will right now.”  
          “Has he been violent towards you?”

          The cut to her heart, the one Lecter’s bloody eyes had drawn, went cold.  Molly gripped her own arms for support, “No.  No, of course not.  Why?  Has he been violent?”  
  
          Dr. Lecter’s silence was so forced it spoke volumes.  Molly knew where she needed to glare.  Jack’s silence was even scarier.  “I’m telling you this off the record, Dr. Foster: Will re-constructed a crime scene today.”

          She looked to Dr. Lecter.  “What does that mean?”   
  
          “It means,” Jack waited until she was looking back at him, “that Will re-enacted the gruesome acts that resulted in a young woman’s death…on the young woman’s body.”  
  
          Molly still didn’t understand, but she no longer needed to.  Her anger completely overrode every question for clarification that she could think to ask.  “He re-enacted a murder today on a body, and you still have him investigating cases?”

          “You are not Will’s keeper.”

          “Neither are you!”

          “Dr. Foster,” Dr. Lecter asserted himself calmly, voice of reason to the bitter end, “there is no doubt that Will’s actions today were shocking.  However, Agent Crawford is correct: much as we all care for Will, it is his decision to continue working in the field.”

          All the accusation, all the anger, drained out of her when she addressed him.  He was cold water to her hot iron, and her words rose from her mouth like steam, “If you don’t mind my asking then, Dr. Lecter, what is your role in all of this?”   
          Dr. Lecter’s answer was simple: “I am Will’s friend.  I consider my obligations to him very much aligned with your own.”

          Molly didn’t say it, but she was sure her rebuttal was perfectly obvious.  She was tired of being Will’s friend.  She was tired of ignoring the warning signs out of respect for his autonomy.  A real friend, she felt, would have put him on administrative leave instead of pushing him to frequent crime scenes.  Dr. Lecter might not know the extent of Will’s decline, but Jack Crawford certainly did.  And ultimately, it was Jack’s call whether or not Will went to a scene. 

          She shot a menacing glare at Jack.  He met her eyes, but his stare was gentler, apologetic.  “I wouldn’t put him out there if I didn’t think he could handle it,” Jack said.  “I promise you that, Dr. Foster.”

          “All due respect, Agent Crawford,” and she used that preface only out of respect for Dr. Lecter, “I can’t believe that.  Not in light of what you just told me.”

          “Believe what you will,” Jack nodded sadly. 

          Molly ignored him.  She shifted towards Dr. Lecter, chastened, defeated: a thunderstorm between opposing fronts drifting out to sea. 

          “Thank you for your time,” she added before departing. 

          Lecter held the door for her as she walked out. 

          “Dr. Foster,” he bid her before she could get too far.  Molly’s heart no longer panged from the cut of his stare.  She hurt only from what Crawford had said.  The door safely shut behind them, Dr. Lecter saw fit to confide in her, “I have complete faith in Will.  As should you.”

          Molly nodded glumly, trying to accept his counsel.  Trying to not let her confusion show.  She somehow felt more lost now than she had on the drive to the BAU.  “Thank you, Dr. Lecter,” she said.

          Though for what, Molly didn’t rightly know.

 

* * *

 

          Molly stopped in the ladies’ room before heading back to her car, berating herself internally every step of the way for believing that she might be able to sway Jack’s opinion.  The worst part was that Will really was deteriorating, at least she thought he was.  Had been convinced that he was.  But if Dr. Lecter didn’t think so…

          She ran cold water on her hands and folded her wet palms over the back of her neck.  Her ears burned at the tips from the flurry of her thoughts.  Will had re-enacted a murder, but this was somehow to be expected according to Crawford and Dr. Lecter.  The former was easily doubted, but Molly couldn’t bring herself to disagree with the good doctor.  Dr. Lecter had Will’s best interests at heart, truly. 

          Didn’t he?”   
          The abrasive red of the washroom walls slashed at her corneas.  Molly shut her eyes tight, crushing the muscles on the back of her neck as a method of grounding herself in the room.  Will was okay.  He would be okay.  She would make sure he stayed that way.

          Molly opened her eyes.  The room still cut at her vision, but she felt better equipped to handle her surroundings at least.  She grabbed some paper towels and dried her hands.  The drive back home would be a blessing. 

          The hiss of the faucet stopped her cold.

          She cast a glance over her shoulder.  Somehow, impossibly, the sink had sprang back to life.  Water streamed out of the tap.  “Christ,” she tossed out her towel and marched over, throwing the handles in harsh circles to shut them.  The FBI really needed to fund an overhaul on the bathroom, Molly thought, especially when the sink next to her popped on a second later.

          She reached for the taps, and her own sink sprang to life again, harder this time.  Molly jumped back.  “Christ,” she said again, louder this time.  The last thing she wanted to do was speak to anyone else from the FBI. 

          There didn’t seem to be much other option though, not when the other sinks started on too.

          The sound of rushing water filled Molly too completely.  She heard it from the taps, true, but she could also hear it in her memory: waves crashing along the shoreline, salt water lapping at her ankles.  Sun, sand, and surf - none of which she had experienced firsthand growing up in landlocked Colorado – came to occupy her thoughts.  Molly almost felt she could feel the breeze coming in from the water rustling through her hair.

          Water drained over the rims of the sinks, spilling out in torrents onto the floor.  Molly rushed for the exit too quickly.  Her boots slipped on the tile and gravity pulled her straight down.  Suddenly, she was falling back, but she didn’t stop at the floor.  Molly fell _through_ : through the puddle of water, through the floor, through the BAU, before crashing into the torpor of a great, wet, blue beyond.   

          She had never even seen the ocean before outside of travel commercials, but Molly knew that was where she was.  Salt water burned her eyes and nose.  Sunlight dazzled from every direction.  Her feet eventually found purchase on the sandy bottom, and when she broke the surface, the world blinded her.  Everything glowed harshly with tropical brilliance.

          Overcoming shock was, for Molly, as impossible as her teleportation.  She resisted the urge to scream, to thrash, to throw a tantrum, or perhaps none of those desires even registered over the harsh realization she was where she couldn’t possibly be.  Dreaming: she must be dreaming.  Her meeting with Crawford and Dr. Lecter was a figment of her imagination.

          Will wasn’t the sick one: she was.

          “Molly?”

          Speak of the devil.  She could hear him calling to her.  “Will?” she spun around, blinking against the light, to find him.  He appeared, yards away, standing on a beach surrounded by his dogs.  “Will!”

          Her foot struck a sinkhole.  Molly tugged, but her foot quickly sank, followed by the other.  She sank into the blue for a second, frantic time.  “WILL!” she called, drowning not waving.  The water swallowed her up before she could shout again.

          …and tossed her out, in a wet heap, onto the ladies’ room floor in the BAU. 

          Hannibal Lecter was standing in the doorway.  He looked just slightly less shocked than she was.             

          

* * *

Happy reading!

 


	8. Folie a Deux

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Thomas Harris, Bryan Fuller, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only. 
> 
> More references to the events of “Entrée” in this chapter. I’m keeping pretty close to canon so far, with a major break scheduled for the next chapter. 
> 
> Thank you so much to the readers still coming back to this fic! I hope you enjoy.

* * *

 

Folie a Deux

 

-Quantico, Virginia-

Will was juggling time and space and self when he climbed the stairs to Jack’s office.  He couldn’t very well hold all three at once, not when they were expanding and contracting in perfect rhythm with his heart.  At the very least, Will hoped his confusion didn’t show as he entered the floor.

          He saw the door: he _knew_ he saw the door.  He even registered the sight of Jack’s waiting room and office, of Hannibal waiting for him, before everything slipped out of sight.  He didn’t black out though.  Will ended up in a frighteningly real hallucination of a Florida beach.

          Winston was there, up to his shaggy knees in the sand.  Will tried not to react.  He couldn’t trust where he was, who he was.  Couldn’t even trust Winston, which seemed like an even greater shame.  He continued walking in what he thought had to be Hannibal’s direction based on his initial trajectory.  Every step was a painful moment of indecision for him.  The sun was scorching hot, and the sand crunched underfoot.  Winston whined at him and lowered on his haunches.  “My name is Will Graham,” he muttered, “It is…” What time was it?  The sun was higher in the sky here than in real life.  “I am at the Behavioural Sciences Unit in Quantico, Virginia.  I think.”  
          He couldn’t be sure.  Even when he closed his eyes, Will still felt the heat of the sun on his back.  Hallucinations weren’t usually accompanied with that level of intense sensory perception.  Then again, Will didn’t consider his hallucinations to be usual.  He did attack a body at a crime scene earlier.

          The feel of Winston’s muzzle against his hand forced him to stop.  Will muttered nothings under his breath, trying to dismiss the vision of his dog as kindly as possible.  “My name is Will Graham,” he muttered.  “I am at the Behavioural Sciences Unit in Quantico, Virginia.  This isn’t real.  This isn’t real.  This isn’t real.”

          Fear causes his vocal chords to constrict.  Will coughed to loosen them and then quickly called out to Hannibal beyond his fantasy that he needed a moment.  He then pulled himself away from Winston and marched back the direction he came.

          His feet caught in the sand.  The sun burned at his eyes.  Will cupped a hand against his brow hoping to block out the light, to gain some perspective, but his hallucination persisted.  The beach stretched off for miles at both his sides.  He stared at a dilapidated trailer overrun with old machinery, mostly boat motors.  Déjà vu almost made him drop to his knees.  The whole scene reminded him of life with Dad, though he knew, deep down, this wasn’t a reconstruction.  This was something far more terrifying than a projected memory, even more than a hallucination.

          “My name is-” Will stopped himself.  The mantra clearly wasn’t working.  He pressed a hand against his face and called for the only person he could trust, “Dr. Lecter?”

          No response.  His hallucination had overtaken reality too completely.  Will tried to hold himself together, but the pressures were mounting.  He didn’t know where he was going to be when he woke up from this, didn’t know who he was going to be.  He could actually kill someone this time around instead of just pretending to.

          As if in response, a person materialized from amidst the scrap piles.  Will shielded his eyes from the sun.  His whole body broke into a shiver despite the heat.  He had conjured a hallucination of none other than himself, only this Will was a verifiable Ghost of Christmas Future.  Gray haired, world weary, and scarred: Will was confronted by a most destroyed version of himself.  A long healed gunshot wound beamed at Will from his doppleganger’s shoulder, and a terrifying loop – still healing – of white scar tissue beamed from the Other’s waist.

          Staring into the abyss, Will became acutely aware that the abyss was staring back.  Other-Will had just as much power in his gaze as his conjurer, perhaps more, given how much his eyes had seen.  Will was even more taken aback when his Other spoke.  “You were the one she was waiting for,” he said with certainty.  Will spun away from the vision and tried to block out his next words. 

          “Don’t trust Hannibal Lecter.”

          “What?” Will answered before he could stop himself.  He even hazarded a glance back in his Other’s direction.

          Other-Will stared him down, eyes as fierce and hot as the sun, “Don’t trust Hannibal Lecter.  Whatever you do, don’t trust him.  He’s not who you-”

          “Will?”

          As quickly as the vision came, it was gone.  Will found himself safely returned to the hallowed halls of the BAU, this time with Jack Crawford accompanying him.  “Where’s Dr. Lecter?” he asked.

          “I thought he was out here with you,” Jack answered.  His cadence was unusually slow.  “He must have left.”

          Will nodded dismissively.  Sure, fine, whatever.  What had he come here for?  Surely not another case already.  He had already botched one crime scene.  Jack wasn’t tenacious to risk another.  At that thought, Will’s memory returned.  “Where’s Molly?”   
  
          “In my office.”

          “Is she alright?”

          “I think she may have hit her head when she fell.  She should probably get checked out.  Are you-” Jack checked him over.  Will knew how bad he must look.  His hallucinatory sun had caused his temperature to skyrocket, and the perspiration was pooling under his coat and into his boots.  “Are you alright to drive?”

          The best defense was a surly one.  “I’m alright to be investigating killers, Jack,” Will marched towards the office.  “I’m fine to drive.”

 

* * *

 

The details were eerily consistent.  “I’ve never even been to the ocean,” she lamented.  “I could have sworn I was there though.  Could have sworn I saw you...”

          The last part was added quietly, in an effort to draw attention away from its implications.  Will tried to not let his anxiety show, but it was hard to keep his hands from shaking when he realized that his madness was spreading.

          Molly, to her credit, kept her fear under wraps.  If she was sharing the room with anyone other than Will, no one would have been the wiser to her fear.

          Will’s mind was reeling with possibilities.  He couldn’t have given Molly his psychosis.  That would imply it was physical instead of psychological as his MRI confirmed.  “You must have hit your head,” he reassured her. 

          “I don’t remember hitting my head.”  
  
          “That’s probably because you hit your head,” Will repeated, with greater energy this time.    
  
          “Or because I didn’t hit my head,” she took his hand in hers to conclude the argument. 

          Will changed tactics, “What are you even doing here?”

          Molly stared straight through him.  She was a mess of emotions: embarrassment for whatever happened before the washroom, in the washroom, and the here, now, of sitting, soaking wet, in Crawford’s office; anger at everyone, not in the least herself; worry and fear in small but equal measure for him, and a strong air of suspicion that was directed at Crawford first and then landed squarely on him.

          Will couldn’t blame her: he looked worse than he felt, and he felt awful.  “You’re here for me,” he guessed rightly.

          “I’m worried about you.”

          He fed so easily off of her emotions, “Well, I’m worried about you.”

          “You’re sick.”  
  
          “You’re seeing things,” he was such a hypocrite.   

          Molly didn’t notice.  She wanted the conversation to be over.  “I probably hit my head.”  
  
          “You just said-”

          Her hand – still wet – came to rest against his forehead.  “You have a fever.”

          Will retracted, “I took an Aspirin.”

          Molly’s hand followed his face, “The Aspirin isn’t helping.”

          “I’m taking you to the hospital,” he stood up. 

          Again, she followed: “I’m taking _you_ to the hospital.”  
  
          “I had an MRI done,” the confession caused the wind to drop from her sails.  Molly’s concern started to transform into sympathy.  She reached for Will’s hand to steady herself.  He braced her for the rest of the blow.  “The scan revealed no abnormalities.”  
  
          Molly recovered quickly.  He should have known.  “There are false negatives all the time.  Your doctor might not have known what she was looking for.”

          “So I should just keep having MRIs until they find something?”

          He was tired, so tired, of being broken.  The diagnosis of mental illness allowed Will to move on with his life, to manage his expectations. 

          Molly was not so willing to accept Dr. Sutcliffe’s conclusions, “There is a battery of other tests they could do.”

          “Tests only help if there is something to find.”   
  
          “You have a fever.”

          “And that’s probably all it is.”  
  
          “You don’t believe that.”

          Will tried to keep the focus firmly on her, “ _You_ don’t believe that.”  
  
          She saw through him immediately, “I’m not projecting.”

          “You are seeing things.  Vivid dreams, possibly hallucinations...”  
  
          “I’m soaked in salt water.  I know: I tasted it.”

          “The plumbing here is…old,” the explanation sounded even lamer out loud. 

          “I’m not crazy.”

          Déjà vu knocked the wind clean out of him.  Will felt like the insistence of not being crazy was a running theme in his life.  “You probably just…”

          “I didn’t hit my head,” Molly folded her arms, trying to look as serious as possible.  Difficult to do with her still being soaking wet, “I just wanted you to stop deflecting.”

          “I’m not deflecting.”

          “You’re the master of deflection.”  
  
          “I’m not deflecting.”

          “Either I’m insane and you’re genuinely interested, or you’re worried that you’re insane and are covering that up by focusing on me.”

          She was astute, and normally, Will loved that about her.  Loved that she could size the world up so quickly, loved that she could see him, in him, through him, all the way to an idealistic end.  He just wished that she would give him a break at times like this when he needed to resign himself to horrible outcomes.  “I,” he clutched her hands, “am concerned about you.”

          “But you’re more concerned about you,” she squeezed his hands back.  “You need to talk to Agent Crawford.”

          “I’ve talked to Jack.”

          “You’re not saying the right things then.”  
  
          “Were you here talking to Jack about me?”   
  
          “He didn’t listen to me.”

          “And you think he’ll listen to me?”

          “I don’t think he has a choice.”

          Will uncharacteristically forced himself not to mutter a rebuttal.  He drew Molly out of the office.  “I’m taking you to the hospital,” he said again.  “Get your head checked.”

          The irony of the statement was not entirely lost on Molly. 

 

* * *

 

“Wait.”

          Molly let go of his hand and rushed back towards Jack’s office before Will could ask why.  She didn’t bother knocking.  She had no dignity left to salvage after being found, soaking wet, on the ladies room floor.  “You didn’t tell me Will had an MRI,” Molly said by way of a greeting.

          Jack’s response was hardly forthcoming.  His eyes narrowed infinitesimally.  Molly understood.  “You didn’t know,” she almost laughed.  “Well, surprise.  Will had an MRI apparently.”  
  
          “He told you that in confidence?” Jack’s sternness was a pitilessly obvious defence mechanism.  Not only did he not know, he was bristled that no one took the pains to tell him.

          “He certainly didn’t tell you,” she couldn’t stop herself from gloating just a little.  “I guess a better question would be who else he told…or who else didn’t tell you.”

          “Will Graham doesn’t have many friends,” Jack noted.

          All the joking and gloating left her.  By implication, Jack Crawford wasn’t a friend, and it occurred to Molly what kind of harm Will’s friends were doing.  She was engaging in petty competitions with his boss over who was more in the know, and all the while, his psychiatrist was keeping information about Will’s health a secret.  Part of her knew she had crossed an ethical line, but a larger part was frustrated with the strange code of silence surrounding Will Graham. 

          “You going to tell me what the results were?”

          Molly saw Will still waiting for her outside the office in the corner of her eye.  She held up a hand to block him from view.  “He said the results were normal,” her hand fell back by her side.  Will paced restlessly in her periphery.  “I don’t think he believes that.”

          The second she finished speaking, Molly hated herself.  She came here to save Will, not to push him further into Jack’s service.  All her good intentions and she still ended up conspiring with the devil. 

          “I do want what’s best for him, Dr. Foster,” Jack reminded her.

          “Then stop putting him out there!” she snapped and stormed out of the office. 

         

* * *

 

Happy reading!         

 


	9. The Road Not Taken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If space is infinite then there’s tons of yous out there and tons of mes.”  
> “I like that thought. Somewhere out there, I’m having a good time.” (Rabbit Hole)
> 
> Two different Molly Fosters. Two different Will Grahams. Just two out of innumerable possibilities. AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Thomas Harris, Bryan Fuller, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only. 
> 
> After months of writer’s block (and a slew of extracurricular activities), I am finally writing again. I miss this fandom, and I’m excited to be a part of it again now that promotional photos have started to surface for season 3. I also owe a debt to Underground (a.k.a. after-the-ellipses on Tumblr) for the personal message expressing a desire for another installment of String Theory. I had all but abandoned this fic, but that was the final push I needed. 
> 
> To all the readers of this fic – old and new – I really appreciate the support. I hope that, despite the wait, this is well received. 
> 
> This is essentially Roti AU. What if Will went to Jack instead of Lecter?

* * *

 

The Road Not Taken

 

* * *

 

-Wolf Trap, Virginia-

 

          There is another Will who made a different decision.  Will encounters him on the beach.  “Do not trust Hannibal Lecter,” the other-Will says.  “Go to Jack.  Go to Alana.  Go to _anyone else_.  Stay away from Hannibal Lecter.”   
  
          “Feels cold.”  Even under the blazing sun.    
  
          Other-Will, older-Will, scarred-Will says.  “Tell Jack it’s encephalitis.  Tell him today before it’s too late.”   
  
          The tide rushes it, freezing around his ankles.  Will searches for a totem pole of bodies.  This is the strangest dream he’s ever had, if only from how peaceful he feels.  Cold, but peaceful.  “Where are we?  Where am I?”   
  
          “I’m in Florida.  I don’t know where you are.”   
  
          “I think you’re in my head.”   
  
          “I think you might be in mine,” older-Will laughs, “but I’m not sure.  You’re the strangest hallucination I’ve ever seen.”   
  
          “Then why are you trying to help me?”

          “On the off chance you’re not a hallucination, I don’t want to make the same mistakes that I’ve made.”

          “H-hannibal Lector is a mistake?”

          “Hannibal Lecter is the worst mistake we’ll ever make.”

          He snaps awake to find Molly staring at him in the dark.  Her fear reinforces his own. “You need to talk to Jack,” she says, “Please.”  
  
          “I talk to Hannibal,” Will covers his shiver by rolling away from her, drawing the covers with him.  “He’ll talk to Jack.”   
  
          “He didn’t tell Jack about your MRI.”  
  
          “That’s why I have you.”

          Usually she caves when he talks about relying on her, but tonight, Molly is having none of that.  She kicks off the blankets and storms away.  “I’m your partner, Will, not your God damn shrink…”

          Anger sets Will on edge like live wire.  His body tightens until he aches all over.  There’s no use in trying to sleep, not while she fumes, so he rises and follows her wake. 

          Molly cuts a rough line through the house.  She leaves white caps and storm clouds from the bed to the kitchen.  The dogs circle her in choppy waves, licking at her open palms and thighs.  Under the raw glow of the kitchen light, Will finally sees what he’s been missing: the dark circles under her eyes, the pallor of her skin.  He’s sick and tired, and she’s catching up.

          “What are we doing, Will?” she folds her arms against the dogs.  “You’re sleepwalking and having nightmares.  You’re seeing things.”

          He scrubs a hand through his hair, over his face, down his chest, until his arms are folder too.  “My job has risks.”

          “You mean consequences.”

          “Yes, those too.” 

          “Which you choose to ignore.”

          “I’m not ignoring them.  There’s just nothing to do about them.  They’re psychological.”  
  
          “So wouldn’t it stand to reason to avoid exacerbating the situation?”

          “The work that I do saves lives,” he reminds her forcefully.  Having this argument more than once in recent memory flusters him.  “It’s necessary.”

          “And when you aren’t fit to work?”   
  
          “Then I won’t work.”

          “So why are you still working?”   
  
          “I have the head of the Behavioural Sciences Unit-“   
  
          “Don’t you dare bring Jack Crawford into this.”

          “-and a prominent psychiatrist who have both cleared me for work.”   
  
          Molly shakes her head, “I don’t get it.  I don’t get it!”   
  
          “You don’t have to.”

          “Yes, I do.  I do if I’m going to be a part of your life.”   
  
          “I’m not even going to respond to that.  That’s a trap.” 

          She breaks into a small smile despite herself.  “You want me to be a part of your life.”   
  
          “I want you,” Will smirks.  “I just want you to…understand…that this is who I am.”

          “I don’t believe that.  I think this is what’s happening to you. You told me that you have never been this way before.”  
  
          “Dr. Lecter says…”   
  
          “Please don’t bring him-“  
  
          “Who should I bring into this conversation?”   
  
          “You!  What do _you_ think?”   
  
          “I think I have classes tomorrow, and you have appointments, and I’m going to go back to bed.”   
  
          “For how long?  Until you decide to take a walk around the property?  March yourself all the way to Great Falls?  Maybe we’ll wake up in each other’s beds this morning.”   
  
          “We agreed that couldn’t have happened.  That was your dream.”

          “You waking up in the forest wasn’t a dream, and I don’t need to a prominent psychiatrist to know that’s a reason for you to stop working!”

          Will is already walking away.  He retreats to the safety of the bed, tucks himself deep under the covers, and tries to block her out.  His own voice haunts him though.  Older-Will, Other-Will, the warning-Will, speaks through the darkness for him not to trust Hannibal Lecter. 

          When he wakes up, hours later, on the roof – Molly’s vehicle gone and the dogs yipping at the window – Will starts to think that the two might be right.

 

* * *

 

-Washington, DC-

 

          Abel Gideon’s escape registers dimly in Will’s mind, though the experience of that escape overtakes his imagination completely.  His fantasy burns with a vivid clarity and intensity.  Will knows that’s a red flag, but he knows in the same far-off way he knows that he shouldn’t be at work that day. 

          He calls Molly and gets her voice mail.  Hangs up before he can say anything stupid or needy or frightened even though he’s all those things and more. 

          “WHAT KIND OF CRAZY IS HE?!”

          Jack’s voice thunders through the fog of his imagination.  Will tries to swat the heat away, earn a reprieve from his oppressive rise in temperature, but there’s no escape.  Antlers surround him from all angles.  They jut against his ribs and neck like teeth. 

          He is being consumed. 

          He is burning alive.

          Molly doesn’t call.  She texts - a sure sign that she is pissed – and Will’s vision blurs too much for him to read them.  He wants to believe they’re aggressively sympathetic, but she’s entitled to her anger, just like he’s entitled to be…whatever he is.

          The cold and damp intensifies the feelings of fluidity he’s experiencing.  Will melts into the heat and collects on the windows of the vehicle as droplets.  He doesn’t even know where they’re going even though it was his deduction that brought them to the car.  _It is 8-something pm._ He can’t read the clock, so he wipes his eyes.  _I am in a car driving out of Washington, D.C.  My name is Will Graham_.

          His phone buzzes.  It slips out of his sweaty fingers.  He has to grip it tightly to keep it from falling.  “Don’t trust Dr. Lecter,” the message states.  Sent from his cell phone.  Will blinks and finds it changed to, “Be safe,” from Molly.

          Will isn’t sure what safe is, whether or not it exists for someone with his imagination, so he asks, “I can trust you, right, Jack?”   
  
          Jack raises a brow.  “I don’t know: can you?”   
  
          “I’m not in a condition to say so, not tonight.”  _Be safe_.  “Should I trust you?”

          The agent considers every word of his answer.  “I am going to push you, Will, but I am never going to push you in a direction that I won’t back you up.  Does that answer your question?”   
  
          Will presses his forehead against the window.  He hurts and sweats and hates that he’s here instead of home, “I don’t think you’re going to be able to push me _safely_ for much longer.”

          “Don’t you start going places I can’t follow,” Jack says. 

          “Too late,” Will replies. 

          And just like that, a decision gets made that changes everything. 

 

* * *

 

          The stag leads him away from the vehicle.  Will follows.  He’s not sure how he manages to make it through the snow – his legs feel like hollow pipes.  His spirit is draining out of him in waves with every step.  He spins on the spot without turning – but he is in the trees.  Then he’s in the back of the waiting vehicle and his gun is drawn.

          Garrett Jacob Hobbs joins him in the driver’s seat. 

          Will’s mind screams WRONG.  All wrong.  Garett Jacob Hobbs is dead.  He must be dead.  Or maybe he’s come back to take Will with him into the great beyond.  “You look ill,” Hobbs hisses.  For once they agree. 

          “Stop,” Will needs a minute.  He is so hot and tired, so _unsafe_.  The gun does nothing against the dead, unless Hobbs isn’t there.  Unless he is alone with his own thoughts.  There is only one way to be sure about it all.  “Get out of the car.”   
  
          “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mr. Graham,” Hobbs’s dead eyes stare at Will in the rear-view mirror.    
  
          _Stay away from Hannibal Lecter._

“Get out.  NOW,” Will shakes the gun to prove his point.  Hobbs sighs and steps out of the vehicle into the street. 

          Will follows, on autopilot.  “Walk,” he commands, keeping close to Hobbs’s heels to steady himself.  They walk slowly back towards the footprints in the snow.  Will can’t see any trace of the stag’s hoof prints.  They’ve been washed away by the water.  Moonlight beams over the beach, and the ocean is cool, calm, and clear as glass. 

          He’s still cold and damp from the Washington winter.  The scent of snow and pine overpowers whatever his hallucination might be.  “Garett Jacob Hobbs,” Will speaks.  “Stay where you are.”   
  
          “Hobbs is dead, Will.”   
  
          Jack has joined him on the beach.  “It’s Abel Gideon.  We got him, Will.  He’s not going anywhere.”   
  
          “Abel Gideon?” Will scans the beach.  He rubs his face, forcing his mind to clear, but the more he tries, the more his thoughts swirl along the shore.  Jack places a steadying hand on his shoulder.  “What kind of crazy am I?”

          “Will.”

          His knees buckle.  The snow burns when it touches his scalding flesh.  “I need a medic over here!” Jack calls. 

          Will looks up: into the agent’s face, into the sky, and then back into the mindless, soundless, sightless blue of the ocean. 

 

* * *

 

Happy reading!                   


	10. A Major Breakthrough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If space is infinite then there’s tons of yous out there and tons of mes.”  
> “I like that thought. Somewhere out there, I’m having a good time.” (Rabbit Hole)  
> Two different Molly Fosters. Two different Will Grahams. Just two out of innumerable possibilities. AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Thomas Harris, Bryan Fuller, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only. 
> 
> This story is moving in a direction I didn’t anticipate. I hope no one minds if I follow this plot bunny for a while.   
> Special thanks to the readers who returned for the last installment and those who took a chance on this. Please enjoy!

* * *

A Major Breakthrough

 

-Washington, D.C.-

 

          Will tears his way back to wakefulness and never quite manages the full trip.  His eyes break open from the swell of blood building under his face.  Jack rests a hand on his shoulder, “Easy.”   
  
          A paramedic appears, “Can you hear me?  Can you say your name?”   
  
          He assumes he must, because the medic moves on to other questions: can he make a fist?  Lift his arms?  Smile?  Do you have a history of seizures, Mr. Graham?  Will shakes his head and tries to escape the medic and Agent Crawford.  He can’t seem to get his limbs to work.  The muscles are all shot, stiff, and aching.  The medic speaks to Jack, “Could be a result of the fever: it’s not uncommon with temperatures as high as his.”

          Will’s mouth is just as useless as the other parts of his body, but he musters half of what he’s trying to say, “-cephalitis…”   
  
          “Will?” Jack asks.

          “Encephalitis,” Will stares into the blanket of stars above him.  The word emerges sluggishly from a remote region of his memory.  He doesn’t know why it’s important or who told him.  That information is necessary, though, based on the expression on Jack’s face.  “I need an MRI.”   
  
          “Another MRI?”   
  
          “They’ll want to do one anyways given the seizure.  Make sure he doesn’t have a head injury,” the medic offers.

          “Check,” Will urges, just before the atmosphere loosens up around him.  He can’t get enough air into his lungs no matter how much he gasps.  “What’s happening?”

          “This isn’t typical of a seizure,” the medic starts probing again, but her touches feel very far away.  Will’s head is spinning anew.  Someone’s pulled the plug on the universe.  Someone’s torn open the atmosphere and the air’s draining out into space.  He waits to fall into the ocean or seep onto the beach, but the only place Will goes is into dark. 

          He’s not alone there.  Will shares the dark with an unknown entity, a dark mass of pure, unadulterated paranoia.  He forces his eyes to open, revealing the blurred interior of an ambulance.  The medic is fixing his IV and adjusting the tubes on his oxygen mask.  The man at the door flickers in and out of sight, though he appears entirely as a dark, cloudy mass.  There’s a scare obscuring his face, a wide slash of gray that leaves him smiling in three places. 

          A feeling of knowing washes over Will.  He recognizes the man, and even though the image is there and gone, there and gone, Will still feels him hovering all the way to the hospital.  All the way back into the dark.

          It’s only when Will wakes up again that the man disappears. 

 

* * *

 

          “Dr. Foster.”

          Having spent the past fifteen minutes staring at the wall, Molly has to blink several times before she can meet Hannibal’s gaze.  “Dr. Lecter,” she says by way of greeting. 

          He sinks onto the couch next to her.  “Has there been any news?”

          Molly shakes her head, “They’ve taken him for an MRI.  They said he had a seizure in the field.”  
  
          “Seizures are not uncommon with fevers.”   
  
          “No, but apparently Will suggested it was encephalitis before he lost consciousness.”   
  
          Hannibal considers the diagnosis carefully, “Encephalitis does not present itself so quietly.”   
  
          “Not typically,” Molly sighs.  She scrubs her hands together, fighting exhaustion.  “There are rare cases that present with psychotic behaviour.”

          “Do you think it’s encephalitis?”   
  
          “I think that this is something fixable.  Encephalitis is fixable.”

          The air in the waiting room becomes lighter all of a sudden.  Molly can’t seem to catch her breath.  She gasps sharply and extends her arms to give her chest more room to expand.  “Do you feel that?”

          No, he doesn’t, but Hannibal can certainly see her distress.  He inches closer to her, “What’s wrong?”   
          “I don’t know.  I just…” Molly continues gasping.  “I can’t catch my breath.  The room is shaking.”

          Quaking is more like it.  A crack splits the hallway down its centre and a dark figure flashes into view.  Amidst Hannibal’s ministration, Molly can see the shape draw closer and closer to the waiting room.  The image clarifies, driving the rest of breath from her lungs.

          “Have you had an attack like this before?” Hannibal asks.

          Molly takes a long minute to respond, “No, never.  Is that Will?”

          “Where?”

          But Will is walking away.  The air starts to fill her lungs again just as quickly as it disappeared.  Molly forces herself to rise.  “I thought I saw Will leaving,” she sighs. 

          “Are you sure you’re alright?” Hannibal asks, rising with her.

          Molly shrugs, “Apparently.  I’m not sure what happened.”   
  
          “Perhaps you shouldn’t be walking around.”   
  
          “Whatever it was, it’s gone now,” she tilts her head towards where she swears Will was just standing.  “I’ll just take a walk.”   
  
          “It’s unlikely that Will would be walking around.”   
  
          “You don’t believe that,” she says.

          “No,” Hannibal’s mouth curves into a slight smile.  “I would hope that he has learned his lesson after tonight though.”   
  
          Neither of them have to retort: not bloody likely.

          Whoever Molly saw is no longer in the hallway when they patrol, nor is he in any of the stairwells or waiting at the elevator.  “You saw Will,” Hannibal states as much as asks, and Molly confirms that she did, though he was different.  Darker.  Distorted.  Her perception might have been conflicted by the sudden loss of breath, but she doubts that she conjured him entirely. 

          Hannibal returns to the waiting room as she takes to pacing.  Sitting still holds little appeal for Molly, fresh from her brush with panic or death or whatever came upon her earlier.  She works her way from the stairwell back to the waiting room twice before the wind gets knocked out of her again.

          Her hand on the wall is not enough for stability.  Molly’s vision starts to slip-slide out of sight, like the whole world is draining into a hole only she can see.  The loss of air causes her to sway on her feet.  She nearly pitches into the great torrent of hospital when a hand catches her.

          “You are not crazy, and what you’re feeling will pass.”

          “Will?”

          The hand reaches across her chest and pulls her tightly for a hug.  His aftershave is a dead giveaway.  Molly struggles to turn around, but she’s pinned back to chest with him.  He brings his face to rest next to hers.  “I don’t want to scare you.”   
  
          “Then stop,” she tries to pry his hand off.  “Will…”   
  
          “But I need you to understand something: no matter where you go, no matter _when_ you go, Hannibal Lecter is a monster.”   
  
          He keeps one hand over her heart and brings the other to rest around her waist.  Molly knows it’s Will, but she barely recognizes the touch.  His hands are gnarled from work, callused, and there’s a rubbery line crossing his cheek that sickens her to the core.  “What’s happening?” she asks him.  “What the hell is going on?”  
  
          “I don’t know,” Will whispers, “not completely.  I know that he’s at the centre of it, whatever it is.”

          “Hannibal Lecter?”

          “You feel it, don’t you?  When he’s around?  Like the whole world is breaking to pieces?  He’s the same here as he is anywhere else, the kind of evil that exists in every iteration.”  

          “Let go of me,” Molly starts to struggle.  She looks for help but people move past her without seeing.  The panic continues to limit her faculties.  She has even more trouble breathing. “Let me go now, Will.”   
  
          “I’m going to stop it,” he promised.  “I’m going to save you this time.  I’m going to save _us_ this time.  I just need you.”  He breathes her in; Molly’s stomach turns, and she can’t help but gag.  “I just need you to stay out of my way.”

          He kisses her on the cheek just once before releasing his vice grip around her waist and shoulders.  The air returns, then her balance, and Molly stands in the hallway winded but hardly the worse for wear.  Terror grips her in new ways, ways that this other-Will had to invent before he vanished into thin air.

          She wipes at the wet spot on her cheek.  The kiss lingers long after the trace of it is gone. 

 

* * *

 

Happy reading!


	11. A Bridge Over Troubled Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If space is infinite then there’s tons of yous out there and tons of mes.”  
> “I like that thought. Somewhere out there, I’m having a good time.” (Rabbit Hole)  
> Two different Molly Fosters. Two different Will Grahams. Just two out of innumerable possibilities. AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Thomas Harris, Bryan Fuller, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only. 
> 
> They cast Molly Foster and Reba McClane this week with two immensely talented people, and then, just when my week was full of joyous dancing, I watched the trailer (again). I’m working my way back into the fandom. I don’t remember it being this hard last he-ate-us, but I guess there was a shorter gap between seasons. Hopefully, I can work myself back into writing regularly again. 
> 
> I promise this chapter relates to the new, main arc established last chapter. I just want to spin a few more strings before I get there. Will and Willy in this chapter.
> 
> (A chapter that is AU despite following the canon, since Molly’s son is named Walter in the series. EEP. More universes to write.)

* * *

 

A Bridge Over Troubled Water

 

* * *

 

-Sugarloaf Key, Florida-

Interactions between Will and Willy are loaded.  Their silences are fraught with white noise and a steady current of emotional charge.  It’s a constant negotiation: Willy’s not angry, but he’s anxious.  He’s taken up the mantle of man of the house before he even understands his own boyhood.  He takes his time measuring Will, observing him, assessing the possible risks.  Willy knows there’s secrets being kept, but he’s smart enough to know adults don’t reveal them by being asked. 

          For that reason, Will finds himself observing and assessing possible risks too.  He’s careful to keep the conversation focused on Willy, a trait Willy responds to despite himself.  The boy wants a father, and Will sees an opportunity to have a child now that the greatest opponent to his paternity is locked up and away.

          He’s all but moved to the Key now.  The dogs took to the property one by one, with Winston being the last holdout out of loyalty to Will.  That leaves a lot more time to dance in orbit with Molly’s son, especially since Will’s become privy to her baseball days.  The days when Molly collapses on the couch in front of the television and doesn’t move, barely speaks.  “I’m fine,” she says with a fragile smile.  “I’m fine, I just want to watch the game.  That’s all.”

          The house becomes one large expression of her melancholy.  All the symbol of life come with the implication of mortality.  Her photographs are of Mollys and Willys and Phils that are all gone, gone and dead and buried.  Will doesn’t want to walk away, but he knows the value of solitude better than he cares to admit and heads out to the beach.

          Where he sees Willy on the dock, also alone, fiddling with one of the many fishing rods he and his mother have amassed over the years.

          “She hasn’t done this in a while,” Willy says by way of a greeting. 

          Will was too busy thinking of opening sentences, trying to get the words in order, that he starts saying something fishing-related before his brain catches up with Willy.  “Your dad played college ball,” he notes. 

          Willy nods, masking his sadness with a seriousness beyond his years, “Yeah, he was pretty good too.  Mom only watches the games when she’s upset.”

          “Hm.”   
  
          “You two have a fight?”   
  
          “No, no,” Will doesn’t mean to laugh, but he can’t help it.  “I wouldn’t fight with your mom.”  Molly’s fighting spirit is made out of titanium.  Her son’s did as well no doubt.  Even if Will could contend with one, he wouldn’t survive the other.    
  
          As if he can hear the compliment he’s silently being paid, Willy breaks into a small, sardonic smile, “Smart.”  He finishes tying a hook onto his line and stands up.  “I wouldn’t take it personally then.  Sometimes she just gets sad.  Usually around the end of the baseball season.”

          “I’ll keep that in mind.”

          That settled, Willy gets down to business.  “You staying for dinner?”   
  
          “Do you want me to go?”   
  
          Willy doesn’t have to think about his answer for as long as Will expects him to, “No.  You’re okay.”  
  
          “Thanks.”

          “Do you want to go?”   
  
          “No,” Will replies, “but I don’t want to intrude.  I know it’s been your mom and you for a while.”   
  
          Willy responds by casting his line.  The familiar, electric silence swells between them.  Will is about to retreat when the boy makes a decision he’s been waffling around for a while.  He doesn’t quite know how to ask, so his statement comes out sounding like a question, “Mom said you liked fishing…?”

          Will gets it.  He’s been in Willy’s shoes before, searching for some kind of bridge between human beings and not knowing how to articulate it.  He walks up to the poles, “Fly fish, spin fish…” murderer-fish, “I like fishing.  I used to love fishing.”   
  
          “What happened?”   
  
          He laughs again, feeling free as he clutches an old, weather-beaten rod and goes through the motions of baiting the hook.  “I used myself as bait.  Got chewed up and spit out by my catch.”   
  
          Willy glances at him.  “Is that how you got that?”   
  
          Will’s not sure what to say.  He thinks about Molly, who must not have told her son because _who would tell an eight year old about getting gutted by a psychopath?_ He also thinks about the gleam of insight in Willy’s eyes, the perceptiveness of that stare, and the role that the boy took on after his father died.  If there’s a bridge between Will and Molly, Willy’s positioned himself in the middle of it with all the mettle of his mother and deceased father combined. 

          So he can’t lie.  He doesn’t tell the whole truth, but he can’t lie.

          “Yes,” Will says. 

          Willy gets bolder.  He’s not even paying attention to his fishing pole anymore.  “Does it hurt?”

          “Sometimes.”

          “Did you catch him?”

          “Not at first,” Will runs a hand over the deliberate curve of scar tissue on his waist.  He’s trying to smooth away the phantom sensations of Hannibal carving him.  “But eventually.  He’s locked up now.”   
  
          That doesn’t matter to Willy.  He has an adult’s sense of security, tenuous and skeptical.  “Is he still after you?”

          “ _Will he come after us?”_  is what Will knows the boy means to say, and he doesn’t hesitate for a second to lie.  The universe has given him the opportunity to build a life away from Hannibal Lecter, and there is no greater punishment than to forget the good doctor like the God of a bygone era.  “No,” Will replies, “he’s not.  Not anymore.”   
          Willy’s nod is damn near imperceptible.  He turns to look back at the water, feigning aloofness until Will casts his own line.  That’s when Willy inches closer to Will on the dock. 

          And for once, the silence is just that: silent. 

 

* * *

 

Happy reading!

 


End file.
